CHICAGO – “Bad Moms” is another raunchy women behaving badly comedy that never met a curse word it didn’t like. But I’ll say this for ‘Bad Moms,’ it’s rebellion comes from a relatable place. What parent hasn’t wondered if they were in some way failing their children in some way by failing to live up to our pinterest levels of perfection?

Lana Wachowski at the Chicago International Film Festival Red-Carpet Premiere of ‘Jupiter Ascending.’

CHICAGO – The City of Chicago has more than their share of Hollywood here, as represented by local filmmakers Lana and Andy Wachowski. The siblings have made sure that the Windy City is well represented in their latest science fiction film release, “Jupiter Ascending.” Chicago plays a prominent role in the film, which opened on February 6th, 2015.

CHICAGO – “Jupiter Ascending” is certainly one of the oddest and densest of sci-fi movies, this side of “Dune,” and has some of the most laughable acting and dialogue seen in a major film in awhile. But the worst offense is that the film is dull, and practically without emotion or human empathy.

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the highly anticipated new fantasy film “Jupiter Ascending” starring Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum from Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski (“The Matrix“ films)!

CHICAGO – Don’t you hate it when you figure out where a film is going long before it gets there? That could be a problem with “Third Person,” but writer/director Paul Haggis (“Crash”) also adds enough secrets to chew on and enough multiple pathways to explore. Enter at your own risk.

CHICAGO – Not many Oscar winning screeenwriters change the course of their professional lives because of a dream (story below), but Paul Haggis is an exceptionally brilliant writer whose credits include “Crash” (2005) and “Million Dollar Baby” (2004) – which both won Best Picture – and his new film, “Third Person.”

CHICAGO – Sam Raimi’s “Oz the Great and Powerful” starts so promisingly. The full-frame black-and-white scenes that open the film have a clever charm as they introduce us to the title character (James Franco) and whisk him off to the legendary land of witches and talking scarecrows. And that scene where the film expands as he reaches his fantasy land is a beauty.

CHICAGO – “Oz the Great and Powerful” is a great and powerful visual and 3D experience. It expands the landscape of what cinema can produce in a visceral and evolutionary way. But a great film also needs a great story, and this Land of Oz tale is not equivalent to the awe-inspiring imagery.

CHICAGO – Even the most confident people behind the scenes of Seth MacFarlane’s “Ted” must have been blown away by its success, arguably the most surprising hit of 2012. $100 million domestic would have made the movie a success but it made double that and half-a-billion worldwide, ranking as the 7th highest grossing R-rated film of all time domestically. It’s a phenomenon and Universal treats it thusly with a nicely-packed Blu-ray release with deleted scenes, featurettes, and more.

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CHICAGO – There are few films in 2017 that are as historically important as they are cinematically well-crafted. Of those, there is only one I saw three times in theaters. That honor comes in the form of the revolutionary “Wonder Woman,” which not only shows huge promise for the future of DC Comics films but for comic book-based films as a whole.

CHICAGO – TV fans know Monica Raymund as paramedic Gabby Dawson on the long-running “Chicago Fire.” But the talented actor is expanding her range, debuting her first film as director, “Tanya,” at the Midwest Independent Film Festival on Tuesday, August 1st, 2017. The short film – written by Sam Forman – will be part of “Female Filmmakers Night” at the Midwest Indie, and is part of Raymund’s involvement with Hidden Tears Project, an organization dedicated to raising consciousness by creating media on gender inequality, sexual abuse and human trafficking.